


Crossed Horns

by Queenyashi



Category: Original Work, crossed horns
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angel Wings, Angels, Angst and Feels, BUT NOT LIKE THAT!, Blood and Injury, Child Abandonment, Child Soldiers, Cooking, Dark Fairy Tale Elements, Demons, Denial of Feelings, Drama, Emotional Constipation, Enemies to Friends, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fairy Tale Logic, Fauns & Satyrs, Female Protagonist, Fictional Religion & Theology, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Found Family, Graphic Description, Graphic Violence, High Fantasy, I mean this mf burn is SLOW!, Inspired by Roleplay/Roleplay Adaptation, Intersex, Magic, Magical Realism, Multi, Original Character(s), Original Female Character(s) - Freeform, Original Fiction, Original Mythology, Protectiveness, Serious, Slow Burn, Swordfighting, These are for the future as well, Time Skips, Werewolf Culture, Werewolves, fairy tale AU, these bitches gay! good for them
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:41:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 12,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27344488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Queenyashi/pseuds/Queenyashi
Summary: Seraph Ioannou is a quiet, hateful man with a sword in his hand and one in his mind. Centuries alone with his grief have driven him half mad and vengeful. Yet a night of slaughter leaves him with the care of a fragile, blind girl he can't help but help.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 2





	1. Bad Luck.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Austin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Austin/gifts).



> This first chapter is edgier than my Gaia online profile but bear with me

The ground was black beaten and barren. Hoof marks rolled along its surface leaving rainwater filled craters. The setting sun cast the small encampment in an ominous orange, glinting off of long since fallen marble columns like fire from the gods. The hollow columns spanned hundreds of yards, their entablature scraped in wide, sloppy strokes and covered by tarps of braided leaves. The center of the encampment gripped jagged remains of a massive temple. Its skeleton structure, sinking into the mud like a scuttled ship in war, was carved with delicate, exquisite reliefs of great antlered deer, faun centauri in billowing robes, floral blossoms between scenes of lavish meetings of the minds, now caked in dried dirt and tar. 

From the structure came the steady trickle of Faun men, subtle markings of their gaunt furred bodies marred by tacked down white residue, pulling heavy carts by their shoulders laden with marble, thick chips of blue-gold lapis lazuli, and dented gold chalices and ornamentations tossed haphazardly. Slowly, exhausted workers made their way to the hollow columns with their hot breath sticking to them in the fall heat with each act of exertion. They lifted the sheets up with their antlers and returning to their waiting families inside.

All but one faun man had safely returned to their homes when the roll of the drums began. It started off low like a tiger's growl, but with each second it grew louder in intensity. With the recognition of the first beat chaos erupted in the once-still encampment. Families tightened the tarp closings, grabbing sharp sticks by the entrances, hunkering down, waiting. 

One tarp stayed untightened, the spear by the door unmanned and left placidly to the side. A mother soothed her crying sons, blonde hair slick to her face with sweat, anxiously listening.  
"Hush, very quiet, just like we practiced." She whispered with an authoritarian tone. Her youthful looks were betrayed by her exhaustion, the desperateness in her expression left rumples along her skin as she stared unblinking, "You know they can hear you crying." 

The sounds of hoofbeats followed the thunderous preclusion of drums. Chased after that was a chorus of rattling, deep toned roars. The small child in her lap lost his composure, thin frame trembling with body wracking sobs. A chain reaction sparked from this, as four other cries echoed down the length of the undecorated column, reverberating with a physical push. Her gentle tutting quickly changed to anguished terror, pleading with them to stay silent, stay low. 

She could hear the first death outside of her home, a pair of antlers ripping through the braids of the door with a loud tear as the beige cloth turned black under the low lighting.  
Too late.  
She knew whose body it was, and she knew what would happen next. Another faun's body hit the mud with a sickening slap. Then another. If they were lucky, it would be quick. Another. She could smell burning, fires set at the opposite end of the column to drive them out with the smoke and heat. Two more. Worst case scenario were the slavers. The sound of the bodies layered too much to keep linear.

The children were pressed tight against her legs. She was feeling the heat from the other side of the column approaching them with a hunger. She was helpless but to stand and wait for the end.

The tarp separated from the column, fluttering silently across the still-warm corpse of her husband. A figure stepped in, then two more, flanking like an arrowhead. The burning encampment behind them left their bodies entirely blackened, save for the green eyes reflecting the orange cinders. 

She could see claws outreaching through the darkness, jaws parted in a sharp toothed smile as they lunged at her. She scrambled backwards, covering up her children with her waifish body as she fell, hoofs scraping loudly against the marble. She braced herself for the end, eyes squeezing shut. A final flash of sharp and they could reunite as a family somewhere far away.

But it didn't happen. She let herself see, almost certain her adrenaline spike washed her with numbness. But instead, she was whole, and the whole column was filled with the smell of burning hair, and loud sizzling joined the drums and bodies. Her world be attacker was stuck with his knees bent, arms dangling limply at his sides in a frozen lunge. His eyes were wide as he attempted to register the red hot blade that was pushing diagonally through his body. She watched the recognition fade from his eyes as the blade was retracted in a swift and furious motion, blood pooling in the fuller popping and bubbling against the heat as he thudded at her hooves. 

There was an imperceptible flurry of movements. She could see a fourth figure, dented armor reflecting the light of his sword as pale flame began to lick up its sides, messily dodging grapples from her attackers, their claws grabbing, digging into flesh and metal and hair. Sharp teeth, then pushing the man against the wall, knocking him prone. They pounced onto him, snarling reverberating for hundreds of yards of tunnels. He threw himself back, crushing a body against the wall. His hand found fistfuls of coarse braided fur at its temple, retracted and smashed it backwards. One time, then three, then over and over until it snout formed a concave dent and the struggling ceased. Attention turned until she saw that the last of them was holding his sword, the small flames reflecting its feral smile, golden capped teeth and green eyes dilated like pure black pits.  
In the dark, she finally heard the man speak, uttering the word "Nuntalas" as though he was calling forth a disobedient hound, and the grip and pommel of the sword joined in the flames, setting her attacker's black fur alight.  
Quickly, the blade was abandoned for a more physical response, the singe of fur and the missing skin of his hands merely attrition to the fight, grabbing him around his neck, the man holding an arm up to block his teeth from fully bearing down onto him. Jaws clamped hard onto his forearm, the leather of his braces penetrated with a loud pop as he sucked air in through his teeth.

He was against the wall, the thumb of his free hand pushing into its open eyes, struggling to remain on his feet as its legs lifted up and started to dig through his plate armor. He slid down, unable to keep his footing, taking the opportunity to reach for the sword that was just out of reach, still burning brightly. 

She built up her whole courage as she watched it shake its head side to side, plate armor peeling off in thick ripped pieces with each kick. With her whole focus, she grabbed the flaming blade, pulled it overhead, and brought it down with all her might.


	2. Torn Asunder

The panther collapsed onto the man with its body rolling through death spasms as its fur singed and smoked from the blade piercing halfway through its neck. She dropped the sword quickly, panting and whimpering as she could feel the flesh of her palms and the quick of her hooves burning. 

The man wrenched off the jaws still firmly imbedded in the flesh of his arms, managing to shake off the body with a hard thump. He stayed sitting with his back against the cracked column and breathing heavily, the rhythm over-scoring the rolling drums that had begun fading into the distance. 

She watched him, not wanting to break the tension. She remembered herself, counting her four boys and little girl as they laid low to the ground to avoid the smoke and heat filling their childhood home. All alive. Unharmed.

The man finally stirred, rolling his weight onto his knees. He was quiet as he opened the still gaping mouth of the panther and with a quick grip began wrenching off its golden toothcaps. 

"Everyone's gone." His voice made her jump, its resonant quality shocking. Somehow it was worse than the drums in the way that it rattled into her chest.

"What? What does that mean?" She responded, pushing her wet hair back with the back of her wrist. She did her best to ignore the painful throb of her hooves as she did so.

"You know damn well what it means." He sighed, hands digging into the pockets of the corpses. The crackling of the fire around them was joined by the rustle and rattling of him liberating a coin purse, arrowheads, and vials from its armor pockets, "They took all'a you out. You and your kin are the only ones left. Slavers. Hunters. The like." 

She broke down into sobbing, her sudden emotional outburst triggered her children with an intensity that left the man startled. The light of the flames allowed both of them to actually register the appearance of the other. She was thin, animal-like. He could see that she was seized in the center of starvation, her burlap dress had pins scattered around it to tighten the fabric against her body. Her face was almost corpselike, with sunken eyes and deep divots where full cheeks were supposed to be, long snout freckled with hairless patches. Her children were in better shape, if not only by a little. Shoeless and clothed in tattered scrap clothing made from the same weaving as the tarp door. Their bodies were almost as skeletal as their mother's. He could practically see the weight of hunger on their shoulders. 

She could see him, watching the cold way he looted the bodies that he had just slain. His hair was a dark dirty blonde with blood splattered all along it. She made note of the two thick braids that hung on either side of his time weathered face, decorated with golden hair ties. She didn't know what it meant, but she did know that it was a bad sign. His armor was already heavily battered, dented and pitted in the spots not destroyed by the panther. She also couldn't help but notice his bleeding arm.

She couldn't stop her weeping, waves of grief hitting her between a one second reprise. No husband. No town. No income. No family. Five children and nothing left.

"Stop that." He said, head turned towards her finally with a clink of his armor grinding. "No tears will make your home stop burning, faun."

"My husband is dead." She fired back, wiping tears and snot onto her arm. Her voice was crackling like the flames as she allowed herself to feel angry, "I have five children. Everything I had this morning is ashes." She snapped, "So! S-So pardon me if I cry! What would YOU know about being a widow?! About having nothing left!!" She shouted at him through an outpour of pain tingling through her hooves and her blossoming headache.

She man stood up to his full height, looking down at her with an unreadable expression. Her ears flicked backwards as she understood what she had done. He grabbed her wrist, pulling her out of the column with her children in tow. "No, No, I-I'm sorry I didn't"

"Can you ride a horse?" He asked as the heat dispersed and the air cleared of the smoke and soot. She blinked, able to take a breath of cool air that lifted the burning in her lungs, "What? Yes? What does that have to do with anything?" She asked him, the stark shift of scenery and nature of the conversation left her too reeling to continue to cry. 

"Out of this God forsaken place is the capital. You know where it is." he began. He physically lifted her by the shoulders onto the newly orphaned horses of the men who slowly cooked within her old home. "It's a blue farmhouse. Been uninhabited for almost fifty years. Through the gates. Repeat it to me." he said, hoisting child after child onto the massive black stallion. He was almost appreciative that they were so starved, otherwise there was no way in hell he could have fit them all on there.

"I'm sorry, I don't.. I'm not.. What?" She asked him, wrapping the reigns around her wrist to spare her hands any more trauma. 

"Repeat it back to me." He reiterated with a firm tone. His resonant voice demanded her attention.

"Blue farmhouse within the capital..." She echoed, "in the... will they let faun in the gates?" she asked, looking down at the black beaded saddle.

He rolled his head side to side contemplatively, "Ah. Most people haven't heard of a living faun. You'll be fine." 

There was a tight pause where they both just looked at one another, contemplating.  
"I want to repay you for your kindness." She said, her voice intense. She had nothing, but she still had her pride. 

"Hah. Repay me with what? Charred marble? Scabs and fur?" He didn't smile, scrutinizing the seriousness on her face. 

"Take my youngest." She said forcefully, "As a gift." 

He physically recoiled at the command, "Eh? Are you out of your fucking mind? What in God's name would I do with one of your bonelings?" He asked with raised eyebrows. 

"She cooks. She knows how to polish metal like your ragged armor." She said, "She's sweet. She knows songs and the fiddle. I-I mean, she even weaves." She stated, wanting to hug her goodbye but not having the capabilities. She set the little faun on the ground, who didn't respond beyond bracing herself to have her hooves sink into the mud. 

"I'll eat her." He responded quickly, violet eyes flashing.

"She'll starve if you don't." Her matter-of-fact expression and speech had shut him down completely. It was the hardest decision of her life and she had made it in just a moment. It was strategic. Of course she would starve without being given away. At least this man had the capability to hunt and provide. She would need her sons to help her survive in the Capital. 

Her horse, laden with the last of the encampment, left without the youngest.


	3. Shepherd's Pie and Apple Juice

He watched the horse vanish off into the distance, its black body vanishing into the black forest line. Then his vision tracked down to the faun girl. She was mangy, curly hair in an indistinguishable color matted down with soot, mud, and white granite dust. She was holding her elbows and staring at where her mother had just been. She looked maybe twenty four hours from succumbing to hunger. 

"Fuck. Fuck me, what the fuck." His hands threaded through his hair as he tried to form a plan. "Fuck it" He went back to the column, pulling his extinguished sword from the neck of the panther body. He hopped onto his horse, turning her to pull away from the entire situation. She would have starved regardless. 

The horses hooves left deep marks in the mud, each thunderous foot fall creating an arch of rainwater. He hadn't even noticed it started raining in the midst of the chaos. The ride was silent, he cleared his mind of the whole nightmare. He felt his haul in his pocket. Five gold teeth, not bad. There was a fence for witches by Ya'Norr he knew would take teeth. Fifteen blonde coins. Excellent for panther money. Almost useless otherwise. Two red vials with hard wax seals on them. Health agonists, excellent. He knew he would have to bear through drinking one soon according to the hot, piercing pain radiating all the way to his elbow from the bite. Shit, and his armor was completely blown. The plate metal on his shoulder was shredded by panther teeth, punctures that even chinked into the chainmail. That was more trouble than it was worth, tenfold. He had left in such a hurry that he hadn't even loaded the loot into the saddlebag.

His horse, by memory, brought herself to a small stable on the brink of crumbling, in an area where the muddy forest found a reprieve. In the middle of tangled overgrowth and tall black pines was an unassuming, weather beaten inn with grey smoke twisting from the cobble chimney through the downpour. The shingles showed signs that they were once a cheerful shade of red that aged into an ashen brown, the glass of the windows shoddily repaired with chips and cracks weaving through its glass like spiderwebs. The sign hanging on rusted links outside its wooden door was missing letters, with the ones remaining time-faded in a rusty red but legible enough to read "Inn Of The ill man". 

He didn't mind the aged, dirty exterior. His beast found comfort in a bed of lightly molded hay, and he flipped open his saddle bag to dump the contents in.  
Tangled curly hair spilled out the moment he opened the leather flap. "What! Are you fucking kidding me?" He asked. He grabbed a fistful and pulled up, causing the little faun girl to scream and snarl. She looked at him indignantly, holding his wrist with her full strength. "You've been there the whole ride. Just waiting." He released her hair as his face flushed with frustration. It was too late. He could just set her loose to the coyotes, but she clearly was smart enough to follow him into the inn like a duckling. His glance lingered on the water trough. He clicked his tongue. Even he wasn't hard enough to drown a starving child in old rainwater. But the night was young. 

"Come on." He pulled her out of the saddlebag and walked to the crooked wooden door, pushing it open with his foot. The internals were less dour and grizzly than its first impression. Inside there was a firepit alight with a cleaner fire than the one he had just come from. A wooden bar was studded with individuals of all creeds holding drinks and piling chipped plates in front of them, a bronze scaled Igra courtesan shared a pipe with a draugh elf, smoke billowing from her rounded snout as she laughed with him. A bitter looking dwarven woman pulled her black beard into a ponytail, empty pie tins surrounding her as she glanced at the people walking through the door. The inside was comfortable and still modest, with moonbear skins dyed brown and painted with tribal designs covering horse hair furniture older than most people in the building. 

He lumbered to the bar top, turning to see the faun girl shading her eyes from the firelight, slowly shuffling her hooves across the wooden floor until she bumped into an empty highbacked chair next to him that she climbed up with pathetic whimpers of effort.

The tavern maid opened the door to the kitchen with a swift and familiar push of her hips, letting it swing closed as she held her arms stacked with shepherd's pies in silvery tins and thick hands clutching pitchers of midnight black stouts. She noticed the bleeding man and his filthy ward, thick curls springing with the turn of her head. She stumbled to regain her composure, keeping her pies stable. "Seraph!" She exclaimed as she unloaded her arms. Her face was knit in worry as her rich black eyes fixated hard on his mangled arm. 

"It's fine." He responded gruffly, setting the health agonist on the tabletop. She softened considerably, hands on her hips, sucking air through the gap between her front teeth. She was a stout woman, full figured with warm and deep brown skin decorated with black freckles. Her eyes were a cow-eyed romantic black. Her sunset colored dress was splashed with flour, her mane of curly brown hair barely contained by a golden circlet. 

"You shoulda drank it before you got your blood on my table." She said, reaching out and squeezing his other arm, "Pain in my ass, you know I worry about you." She turned her gaze to the half feral faun child sitting close to him, staring back at her with her freakishly large hazy eyes. 

"Eugh- I-I mean uh." She recovered quickly from a legitimate display of confused disgust, "Who's this little thing?" She saw the tawny brown ears peaking above the matted curls, then she noticed the square, black nose and cleft that guided her upper lip upward, two rounded teeth barely protruding. Her eyes sparkled, "Oh! Oh my god, a temple faun!" she shook Seraph"s shoulder, "look! A living, real temple faun." 

"I know." He responded flatly, sniffing, "Her ma gave her to me. I can't shake her."

"WHAT?!" Her loud voice ceased the ambient conversation in the room for seconds as everyone registered her panicking, setting forks down until they registered that she wasn't in peril. "YOU? You were given a /kid/?? No- a temple faun?" She asked, looking the child all over. Her frenzied excitement melted the longer she looked, smile dropping to a look of stupefaction, eyes narrowing as she leaned over the bartop, "Eh, look, look at her eyes."

Seraph leaned in, making eye contact with her. They were blue. That was reductive. Her eyes mirrored the night sky, her massive faun eyes began with a circle of black that rimmed and melted into a saturated blue like the night sky, the entirety speckled with small points of white. "She's got eyes like a starry midnight. So beautiful." She sighed dreamily.

"No, she's got eyes like she's almost blind. And now I'm stuck with her." He retorted, grabbing the stout she had set down, popping the agonist off of it and pouring it inside with a hissing bubble.

"Don't be so crabby." She reached below the bar and pulled out a small cork bottle, opening it and setting it in front of her. "Go ahead, sweetie." She said warmly.

The faun squinted at the amber colored liquid in the bottle, smelling the lid. She drooled onto the table unintentionally, the electric smell of sweetness after months of chives, dandelion roots, and chokeberries caused her mouth to physically cramp with the process of salivation and craving. She bit around the neck of the bottle and tipped her head backwards, guzzling loudly and messily as a pint of apples vanished into her.

The woman looked perturbed, mouth a tight line, "ahhh, Seraph. She's uh. A real... charmer." She attempted as the girl let the empty bottle pop back to the table.

Seraph watched her, noticing the bright expression once she reached across the bartop and slid a shepherd's pie into her arms. She ate with just her mouth, ravenous frenzied biting and chewing and loud bubbling swallows between an occasional gasp for air before reentry.

The woman leaned her forearms on the table, "She'd make.. you know." Her voice dipped low into a whisper, "an excellent lycan."


	4. Lilac

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Layers mud and years of starvation wash away. When your life was based off of those two things, what's left?
> 
> Seraph grapples with the reality of subjecting a child to his profession.

"Don't." Seraph spoke with a serious tone, anger at the very implication like a hand around her throat. 

She backed down from the topic. "what's her name?" She asked, hoping to redirect him to see his eyes settle back into their beautiful lavender. 

He didn't respond beyond shrugging. She huffed, knowing she had pushed him too far. 

"What's your name, sweetie?" She asked, hand touching her hoof. She felt soft soot and hardened dirt between each of her strands of fur. She felt guilty for her disgust. After all, this was still a child. Just a very.... Different one than her son.

Her starry eyes flicked up, and she used her arms to wipe her mouth, letting crumbs of beef and dirt fall to the wooden bartop, then glanced over warily at Seraph as he set down the empty flagon

"Lilac." She answered, her voice springy in it's youth and femininity, but with a hardened angle, like she was teetering on the edge, "of mother Ivy and father Stone." She said, pushing her empty pie plate forward, her hands cradling her stomach tenderly. 

"Lilac. That's a cute name. Feminine." She said warmly, "I'm Pixis the human. One of the last ones. I bet you know all about that." 

Lilac's eyes welled with tears in an instance, salt pouring down her face in thick droplets as she looked at the bar wench in disgust.

"Yeah, she lost her whole village today, and her pa died in front of her. So. Maybe cool off on the 'last of her kind' shit." Seraph countered cooly.

Pixis turned around and swung at Seraph, her fist clunking harmlessly off of his chest plate. "you're such an asshole! How can you be so uncaring?!" She snapped. 

He returned a shrug, standing up, "She's my problem, I don't have to care about her." He stood up, flakes of iron chipping from his suit, "I've given her enough already." He left them there as he retreated down the hallway to one of the inns rooms.


	5. Brambles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hope may flower, but magic blossoms

"Seraph..."  
Pyxis voice muffled through the walls reached him. He pulled himself from his restless sleep, listening to see if his calling was just a remnant of a fading dream. 

"Seraph...."  
Pyxis tone was urgent, yet hushed. Like she didn't want to disturb whatever she was observing. 

He rolled from his cot, felt the patch of warmness where Pyxis recently had laid. Ugh. The memories of yesterday rocked through his mind. If only that was just a dream. 

Pyxis stated at seraph as he reached the hall, her arms and head were wrapped up in thin green vines, waxy ivy leaves and delicate petaled purple flowers, barely leaving a space for her voice to escape. He followed the vines with his Sight, catching them spawning from his Faun's hooves, trailing up her arms and growing along what looked like freshly washed hair. 

"She's sensitive." Pyxis said.

His face was stoic as he studied the way the vines seemed to appear from her arms, thick and with fine silvery trichrome like tomato plant covering both of them. A hunting knife slid from a sheathe on his side and ripped coarsely through the vines that connected their bodies, with each thin strand cut the orphaned piece vanished with tendrils of smoke. 

Lilac stared at both of them, her blue starry eyes seemed alarmed and afraid, moreso than they did yesterday, magnified by the white rim of fur surrounding her eyes. 

"Seraph. She's Sensitive." Pyxis repeated, grabbing his hand. Liberated from the constrictive vines she now seemed almost jubilant. "A wild magic user! A Sensitive Faun. Come on, even you have to admit, it's!! It's just like the stories." 

He looked back at Lilac, analyzing her hands and arms. Her fur was lighter today, brown like acorn caps and splashed with pale freckles all long her shoulders, wrists, and face. She didn't look like someone with Sensitivity. She looked like a relic from another time like a statue preserved by the elite.  
"Hm." he pulled out a oilskin bag of coins, "She'll need armor then." He settled, standing up. 

Lilac stood after him, her abrupt movement startling herself and Pyxis. 

"Come on."


	6. Red Roses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What kind of idiot would bring a little girl into battle...  
> ...  
> .....  
> Without armor?  
> Alternate summary: Seraph and Lilac have a series of tense half conversations while shopping, much like me and my ex girlfriend, but with one or two more swords.

"Just do it. I'm paying." Seraph barked, his aged voice meeting the thunderous pounding of hammer on anvil. Lilac stood timidly behind him, eyes downcast as she waited for the end of the confrontation.

The blacksmith bared yellow stained teeth at both of them, "You know I ain't doing that. No man worth half his weight in salt would make what you're askin' for." He said, leaning over his workstation, eyes bearing into Seraph's. Seraph huffed a white cloud of breath into the cold air, dragging his hand along his beard, "Fine. Just repair my set, then." he snapped, tossing down thin golden coins onto his dented iron table, "Fucking kid." 

Lilac followed him quietly from the armorer's stand. She was staying two paces behind him as always. Being in his waking presence was always tense, like she was standing in a wolf's den. One wrong move and she knew he would tear her to pieces. His anger and fury was formidable. Her bare hooves crunched dutifully into the snow behind his boot prints. She knew that night would come soon, and with night came peace. When that undetermined point in the dark would spark Seraph from sleep, and he would bolt upright from their tent and wander off into the woods until dawn. Until then she counted her breaths, watched her body language, carefully tread in the den of the wolf.

"I don't need armor." Her voice was small but not timid. She had spent enough time with her mother to absorb her sense of dignity, and she was proud for it.

His pace remained unchanged, he didn't stop walking through the mountainous town, passing happy families and parties of adventurers laughing and sharing stories, "Can't hear you back there." 

She tensed her jaw, her nostrils flaring as she exhaled slowly, spreading her hooves and clenching them into fists. She marched up beside him, feeling all of her muscles wind up as she matched his steps, primed to sprint. "I said... I don't need armor." She repeated.

"That's the most I've heard you say in the week I've had you. And the stupidest." His voice was much softer than when he spoke to the armorer, yet it betrayed a sense of anger, she could feel it in her muscles, "I've been at this since before your mother's mother was born. I wear plate on chain on quilt on every fucking mission I take on. You think a half-blind little girl has the skills not to get run through on the first attack? You think you can be better than me, seven days in?" He challenged. She looked up at his face. His expression was indecipherable, mouth hidden under his thick blonde beard and his violet eyes pierced forward. From her poor vantage point he looked more like an oil painting than a person. She wished she had an insight into Pyxis's mind, how she seemed to speak to him like he was a human person rather than a living sword. 

"It's not.." she stumbled over her words, her frustration bubbling up around her neck, "It's not worth it." She said.  
That triggered Seraph to stop walking, "Worth it?" He asked, stuffing his hands into his pockets. He finally turned his eyes to her, staring her down combatively in the middle of the path.  
The storefronts around them continued on, bustling with people who walked around them without a glance. She felt like she had just stepped on a tail, anxiety like a white hot wave surging through her body. "I... Um. I mean, you're..." she wrung her hooves together, "You know I'm not gonna make it long." She said sadly, looking down.

"What are you saying, kid? That you're going to wilt away? Like some maiden in distress." He asked, eyebrows raised. He leaned in, shortening the gap between them.  
"You're going to eat me. You said so!" Lilac suddenly exclaimed, "Or you don't... and I get hit with an arrow, or with a sword. Or a hunter finds me, or I catch death." She rambled out, looking up to meet his eyes. He was mocking her, she was sure of it. He was such..

There was a long, agonizing strand of silence where they both shared eye contact and nothing else. She held her breath the entire time, knees locked, and hooves curled into fists, tensed and ready for the inevitable.

"Ain't gonna eat you." He broke the silence, stance relaxing and he straightened back up, "Nothing on you to eat, anyways." He turned and kept walking with a dismissive wave of his hand.

Her hooves dragged forward into the snow, following him despite feeling like she was stupefied. What was that? What was his endgame? Untensing her hooves made her palms sore. She couldn't keep this up.

He stopped on a part of the path where snow had been brushed from the gray cobblestone, looking into a storefront. She tracked his vision, stepping almost to the glass to be able to see inside.  
Dresses? Delicate blue lace dresses with small flowers stitched into the tulle that blossomed out into full skirts, striking black woolen coats with real pearl buttons, arsenic green corsets with golden watch chains decorating the busk, posed lovingly onto straw models. She had never seen anything like it, the opulence in the colors and fabrics, even the complexity of the design was unlike any person's clothing she had never laid eyes on. She wanted to drag her eyes across every inch.

"Why here?" She asked softly, hand resting on the glass. It was too good to be true, wasn't it? After all she had walked barefoot wearing just her plain woven dress for the whole week. Through snow and soot and rain. Why should she expect this from him? As an apology?

"I can't find an armorer to fit you. A tailor is all we have left." He said. He heaved the heavy wooden door open, hesitating for a moment before he walked inside with her in tow.

Inside, thankfully, was warmed by a black marble fireplace. Without his plate armor trapping his heat, Seraph had felt a biting shiver since they left their tent this morning. It was filled to the ceiling with bolts upon bolts of fabrics of all types, from royal purple silk to the cream canvas of peasant's garments. Seraph felt a moment of disbelief that such an inconsequential town managed to have such a well fitted shop. He approached the counter where a silver scaled Igra woman appraised a finished shirt, rich blacks and blood red shades of silk and velvet forming an intricate pattern highlighted with golden studs. She looked up at the two darkening her doorway and lowered her work reverently. "What?" She asked bluntly. For an Igra of her age, her voice was surprisingly smooth, matching her sleek body's appearance. Where sharp spikes were supposed to erupt from her jaw and forehead instead grew marble-like circles of horn, some further obscured with a silk headscarf that draped down her shoulders and arms.

Seraph was unphased by her tone, though Lilac took a step backwards, already so out of her element that the perceived rejection was almost unbearable. "I need quilt armor." He said, approaching the table, "Not for me- but for the kid." He gestured to the faun behind him. 

The Igra woman squinted, standing up and approaching her. She scoured her body high and low, pausing only to unspool measuring tape between two polished claws. "I can do that." She said, "It wouldn't even take me an evening." Her marbled tail swung behind her as she thought, "But, I should tell you.. I'm not a wood button and duck cloth seamstress like you ragged bunch are used to. I'm a tailor for the one and only King and Princess of the Kingdom of Hel." She explained with a sharp toothed grin, "So don't expect a mediocre product /or/ price." 

That was her last chance. Lilac's ears pinned back as she felt herself sulk. At least they had a chance to warm up.  
"I'm an adventurer. You know that." Seraph said, putting his arm out to the side, revealing Nuntalas in her sheath, his cool demeanor felt in place for once, "Let me offer you my services to cut down on some. I won't say I'm the best, but I'm close,"

"Tsh." The woman waved her hands, "Your type of people always think you're wanted, like we're just begging for your help." She said, walking past them and pulling out a bolt of fabric, blood red quilt, perfect for a gambeson. "I want a moonbear. Pelt, teeth, and claws." She said, looking at the roiling ball of emotions standing behind him, "Just because I feel for the little one."

Seraph deliberated for a moment, looking to his faun. "I can do that."


	7. Moonbear Teeth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seraph is in his element, out of armor. Can one man kill a bear, bare?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains a man on bear battle of fisticuffs and graphic descriptions of a pine forest's scent.

Lilac walked behind him out of the shop, feeling the cold air hit them like a forceful wave. "Alright, kid." Seraph began, hand resting with familiarity on the hilt of Nuntalas. His eyes were focused on the pine forest at the boundary of the small village, "Tell me what you know about moon bears." He instructed. 

Lilac's hooves were gripped onto her arms as she shivered, "They're white and black." She said, "And.. uh.. They're used for coats." Her well had run dry, she had heard stories of foreign people saddling and riding them like horses, using them in battles and for rough travelling. Not that she would say that, if it was untrue she wasn't in the mood for mockery. 

"I mean, you ain't wrong." He said, taking her by the arm and pulling her until she walked beside him, "They're used by witches and Quioris. Some people even ride 'em like horses. Not up north." He said, "They don't grow up here like they do. They breed like rats and they're skinny an' half mad." They walked side by side into a wall of rich green pine. 

The scent of the forest was draped in the air as trees obscured the town behind them, the pine needle's oily citrus was distinct above the wet lichen and rotting logs. The wood above them was a shield from the morning sun, a few golden rays braving the shade to lay on the snow cover. The whole of the forest was eerily silent, the thickness of the air was unbroken by the crunch of Seraph's boots through snow and scrub brush. 

Lilac staggered, pulling herself up until she was walking almost atop the snow, her light body and small hooves stopping the saturated layers from giving away. Seraph glanced at her sideways, smirking. 

She built courage to speak again. That was possibly the first positive response she had elicited from him. She wasn't any less afraid of him, but she was beginning to feel more confident that he wasn't trying to leave her in the woods to die. "how?" She balked at herself in frustration. "I mean. How do you.. we hunt it." She restated. 

Seraph huffed, white clouds of breath streaming around him, "You want to hunt, huh? Little rat. With what? Your bare fucking hands?" He asked, irritation absorbing the glimmer of good will he showed to her. 

Why are you making this so hard? That familiar anger was squeezing around her lungs as she kept it all contained. She imagined herself in the wolf's den, she's standing and holding nothing in her hands. What could she do to strike them down?

"No. I... I want to..." She had to push every word out, "May I please use your knife, please..?" She stammered out, looking up at him. 

He stared down at her. His eyes were so dominating, she could barely make out the details on his face, but his violet eyes were sharp, cutting through her poor vision like a knife.

"No." 

Her ears pinned back. "okay." There was no point in arguing. He wanted a decorative faun, a trophy of his burden. Nothing more. She could do that. 

They reached something akin to a clearing, where there were heavy tracks in the snow. They could make out several types of tracks. Hare tracks, dots and dashes in tilled snow, obscured by thick foot falls of what was undeniably a bear. Lilac took a moment to marvel at the size of them. The round paw pads and indents of claws were almost the size of her head. She imagined it, seeing it's body black and white striped, hulking teeth crushing the skull of the little bunny. 

She sympathized. 

"Here. Stand back." He withdrew his longsword. Lilac flinched away, scuttling backwards. She hadn't seen him withdraw it during the week she had lived with him. Now that its bone-like hilt was in his grip she could smell the smoke and blood and burning hair. She peeked behind a pine tree as he threw his sword down onto the snowdrift. He shivered as its white-iron blade pushed into the dirty snow. "Nuntalas." His voice was soft, encouraging the spark and breath of flames that flashed to life in the freezing woods. Lilac saw the sword push bright flames upward into the cold air. 

Seraph stood beside her behind the tree, "Now we wait." He was more tensed than average, the muscles of his jaw wound tightly, blonde eyebrows furrowed. The strange look of pain in his face almost elicited sympathy from Lilac. 

"Why?" She whispered, listening to the puff of snow falling off of branches onto the forest floor and the hissing crackle of his sword sizzling snow into vapor.

"Look." He cut her off, nodding his head towards the distance. 

Her lips quivered. Beyond the bright sword there was a hazy gradient of green and white, the details he wanted her to attend to were lost in the broad strokes. But she could hear it. 

Crunching. Step. Step. Step. She could hear the sound of thick pawpads on forest floor, grinding soft snow into the buried brush. It was getting louder. She imagined it approaching them, its full white fur sticking sickly to its ribcage, skin sagging and stained red from the little bunny. Drawn to the sword light like a rabid dog, primed to bear down on whatever moved next.

"Stay." He ordered. She saw his hand holding his dagger, cold knuckles white from exertion. 

"Let me help." She insisted. She could finally see the moon bear, though her vision only allowed her to see the crescent of black fur and two black eyes, like a ghostly apparition against the snow.

He didn't dignify her with a response, pushing forward past the tree, dagger in hand. She watched with near reverence, balancing between feeling terrified /for/ him and /of/ him. What lunatic would try to kill a bear with a knife? 

The hard metal blade clacked loudly against the bear's teeth as it turned before he could properly strike. "Shit." Seraph breathed, drawing his arm back and priming for defense. 

The bear was just as lilac had pictured him, its fur discolored yellow, black eyes widened in frenzied rage, and its mouth and chest a gauzy red from its recent hunt. It was taken off guard, but instinct had taken over. It lunged forward towards him, arms postured to grab onto him. Seraph was deliberate with his movements, the window of opportunity small. He slammed his armorless shoulder into its chin mid-movement. 

Its body jerked upward, trajectory marred. Its arms found his chest, slipping until its claws found a stronghold on his shoulder. It used the leverage to pull him forward until his boots slid out from under the snow. The still air resonated with the hard thud of his back meeting the wet earth. Seraph was disoriented, suddenly horizontal. He swung his dagger towards the bear's neck. Connection. It sinks an inch into flesh and fur. He silently cursed that he didn't have enough momentum to do away with the issue. And that he had to fight with a shit quality dagger. 

His thoughts were interrupted by the view of a full set of jaws pushing their ways towards his face. Shit. He left the knife to dangle above the stream of blood trickling from the neck of the bear and focused his hands on pushing the snout of the bear away. His hand, slick with sweat and melted snow, slid off of its chin. Seraph watched as his hand vanished into the mouth of the bear as it bit down. He gripped the knife back from its body and thrust it back into the underside of it's jaw, angled backward towards its throat where it sank with a pop and a snarling gurgle from his foe.

"Kid!" Lilac was shaken out of her stupor at his calling. She had just passively observed, as though her presence in the scene was transient. 

"Y-Yes!" She responded loudly, drawing up some attention from the bear. 

"Bring me Nuntalas" His demand was firm. He didn't seem afraid, he didn't seem unsure. He only sounded tired and cold. 

Lilac allowed fear to wrack her body. He wanted her to charge towards a raging bear she couldn't even see to grab a flaming sword? She wouldn't do it. She would stand by as he either defeated or was defeated by the bear. Watch the man who tore her from her family die. 

Then why was she moving? She wasn't walking, she was running from behind the tree towards the bear. Its details slowly emerged from the smear, its bared yellow teeth around seraph's wrist, its walleyed expression of empty minded rage and hunger, its stained yellow fur. She hated it in that moment, everything it represented being pulled with dangerous speed, out from around her lungs and surging through every hair on her body. 

The soft ivory hilt of Nuntalas clacked around the grip of her hooves. Its heat was immense and immediate on her body but she didn't need to focus on the sensation. Two hands on the hilt. She could feel a heartbeat that didn't belong to her in her hands. She lifted it over her head, and she could see the face of Seraph, violet eyes projecting a sick mix of shock, astonishment, fear. Neither one of them really knew where the bitter blade would fall.

The bear's body went limp on top of Seraph, and the harsh sizzle of blood on hot metal loudly occupied the space between them. Lilac released the sword's hilt, staring at where the blade had cleft the base of the moon bear's neck, watching the sword move as the bear cycled through death spasms.


	8. Health Agonist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seraph does a nice thing in a bastardly way

Seraph pulled his hand from the bear's mouth, deep wounds gushing around his wrist from its yellowed teeth. He slid out from under it, and he and Lilac spent the next few minutes breathlessly trying to recuperate. Steadying breathing, adrenaline slowing into trembling limbs.

Lilac buried her burnt hands into the snow, sniffing back tears and frustration, her eyes flicking between Seraph's bleeding wrist and the corpse of the bear. Nuntalas' brutal flame receded into its body, leaving the two of them with only the few streams of midday sun that managed to pierce through the treetops. 

"That coulda gone better." Seraph broke the silence, his voice raw as he looked at the steam rising from the bear's neck. "Coulda gone a lot worse." he shifted all of his fingers on his damaged hand. Full movement. Just a flesh wound. 

"Sorry." Lilac softly said, pulling her hands out from the snow, staring at where the fur on her palms had been completely seared off. Her skin was blackened with a deep crimson underneath, but it didn't trigger any pain, "I should have just handed it to you." she said, "Or helped from the beginning. Or even-"

"Give me your hands." Seraph cut her off abruptly, seeing how deeply damaged they were from Nuntalas. He held them palm side up, seeing the extent of it. She really gripped onto Nuntalas like it was her last action on Earth. The image of her face flashed in his memory, her vengeful snarling expression, bridge of her nose mapped in deep creases, the split second where she didn't know which one of them to bury the sword into, the soft peace that washed over her as the bear's blood misted across her entire face. Interesting.

"You didn't even cry." He said. He used his good hand to pull his bag out, rifling through it imprecisely. 

"I'm not a baby..." She said defeatedly, ears limply pointed down. 

"Grit your teeth and hold your breath." Seraph said, uncorking a small amber vial capped in wax. 

"Why woul-" Her speaking voice crescendoed into an ear piercing shriek as Seraph poured the contents onto her charred hands, wisps of steam and smoke rising from the instant the liquid touched her skin.

Seraph gripped her wrist tightly as she screamed her voice raw and her arms trembled, letting the little bottle fall into the muddy snow. He stared at her hands as her body shed layers of destroyed skin and muscle, regenerating them with wet squelching crackle. 

Lilac fell silent as the steam stopped rising, out of breath and energy, new pink flesh on the palms of her trembling hands. She sobbed between gasps for air as she looked at her hands. 

"It's a health agonist. The last one I own." Seraph explained, pushing a handful of waded up snow into her burning palms, "So don't need another, hear?" He stated as he stood up, joints cracking. 

Seraph made quick work of the bear, blunted dagger still sliding along its skin, pink fascia relinquishing its binding of muscle without any slips of the fur. It was easy, the bear was already skin and bones. He had the pelt heaped in a pile beside him when he began stripping the usable meat. It was small, but it still had legs filled with fatty muscle. "Hold this." Seraph said, rolling the head of the bear into Lilac's arms.

She barely reacted, repositioning the head so that she didn't touch its tongue or the stump where deep red blood was congealing in gelatinous swaths. Exhausted from what just transpired, she just wanted to set up camp and sleep. "Okay." she said, feeling her tears start to freeze on her fur, her throat burning.


	9. Thorns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seraph coaxes lilac's potential

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My sweet, sweet baby boy Eurydice will show up later. Enjoy a gratuitous description of my bb. *smooches him n tucks him into bed*

The walk back through the town was stocked with people turning their heads to stare, mouths agape. Lilac walked numbly a step behind Seraph, not looking at the shopkeepers recoiled in horror at the glassy eyed, gaping mouthed animal she had loosely cradled in her arms. Nothing really mattered all the much, did it? She had just killed a living creature in a brutal way, just because she felt angry at Seraph.

And she didn't even feel bad.

The Igra woman opened the door for them, "You are scaring the townies." She scolded Seraph as he held up a bundled up pelt in his arms, a massive paw dangling limply by his side.

"Oh no." He said flatly, kicking the snow and grit off of his boots before he walked inside. Lilac mimicked the action, though she had no shoes to kick, she didn't want to seem rude. 

"I think you make mighty quick work, adventurer." She complimented, stroking her chin as she looked at the head of the moon bear, "Puny, sad little bear you picked up, but a bear nonetheless." She turned her head away from them, heavy tail sweeping along the ground as she gracefully moved, "Oh Eurydices, Come help your mam" She called sweetly.

From the parting of the golden curtain stepped forward a massive half igra. He had round features, a broad nose that curved up into wide-set almond shaped eyes, full, bowless lips that cleft in the center like a cat's purr. His skin was smooth and even like porcelain, a rich and deep shade of hickory brown. He bore a shocking contrast, his eyes a blinding golden-orange shade with slit pupils, and his hair an ivory-white, arranged into a stunning ornate arrangement of thick box braids that flowed like water over the right side of his head down to his midback. He saw the blood stained, out of breath adventurers standing awkwardly in a shop holding a chunked up corpse and stopped to ponder.

"Huh." Eurydices remarked, knitting his eyebrows together. He was wearing fine white linen clothing, the thought of spoiling his clothing handling a bloody head from a bloodier little girl made his stomach churn. 

"Come on, Eury, this girl has been through hell for her nice dress. Don't leave her standing." She chided softly. 

Eurydices approached her, as he emerged into full view his Igra features became more apparent. Namely his long onyx tail, adorned with silvery spikes, leathery wings folded up politely behind him. He took away the pelt and head with extreme reservation. 

"Never seen a half igra before. Hell, even a winged igra is a sight." Seraph noticed to the tailor.  
She returned a proud, sharp smile, crossing her arms in front of her chest as she straightened her back, "He's my finest design, huh?" Her past grit and conceited body language had been bathed in the tonality of a doting mother, "The Hel army is courting my boy. He's noticed everywhere! Rare breeds are such an ornamentation of everyday, yes?" She was fully engrossed in narrating to Seraph, gesturing in circular motions with her hands. "Of course, you would be fully aware of that. A temple faun is such a rare sight. And look at this one- antlers." She reached forward and wiggled the inch and a half long velvety spikes protruding from Lilac's blood crusted hair, "Now that's something!"

Lilac felt her cheeks and ears flush hotly, looking down at her hooves bashfully, "Thank you." She whispered voicelessly. Something.

She felt her arms being manipulated as the igra woman pulled her arm through a butter soft sleeve. Lilac was stunned by the sensation. It was lined with feather-like hare's fur all along the inside. Lilac looked into the claw-footed mirror of the tailor shop, eyes widening in astonishment. The igra was pulling oiled black leather straps through buckles down the front of her tailor made gambeson, revealing the way the quilted garment subtly illuminated her femininity. Harsh armor was softened by a warm shade of spice red, the collar was a rounded school-uniform style with a matching bow hiding underneath. Even the shape she found so flattering, the silhouette gliding along her body until it flared out at her hips, the very edges decorated with little scallops. 

She had her nose pressed almost to the mirror, hungry for the details. She had always worn woven leaf dresses and over shirts, tubes of "fabric" that ripped from turning in her sleep, carrying firewood, that invited in the chill of the wind, and the soaking rotting wet of rainwater. Now she was wearing fur. Now she was wearing a tailor made dress. Armor. But a dress of armor nonetheless. New and warm and never before owned, made just for a girl. Definitely not liable to tear to shreds fighting a bear or sleeping too restlessly. She ran her hands over the little diamonds of stuffed quilt, "It's amazing." She said, "It's the nicest thing I've ever seen." She felt truly beautiful looking into the mirror, despite the matted hair and bloodied appearance, ignoring the bald patches on her palms.

"Can it hold up to a stab?" Seraph asked.  
"Of course. It's a gambeson." She responded matter-of-factly, disappointed she couldn't enjoy Lilac's reaction a little longer, "Arrows, swords, maces. You know, the gambit. The only true danger is edged weapons close in combat. But she's a little girl, I'm sure that she's not going to be torn up by bandits or wyverns, come on now." She said, handing over Seraph's bill in a delicate, official looking leaflet.

Seraph balked at the price, touching his hand to his forehead, "Fuckin' ... Christ almighty Lilac." He groaned, giving the tailor a heavy handed fist of metal coins. Lilac felt her feet turn cold, uh oh. She didn't have an excellent grasp on money but she knew that a lot of coins and an invocation of a deity was typically a bad sign. He laid his bloody hand on top of her head, "You're lucky you killed that bear today, kid."


	10. Setting up camp

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two deeply miserable people have a moment of peace, and maybe, just maybe they learn to appreciate each other.

Lilac sat by the fire, running her hand up and down the red diamonds on her gambeson. She and Seraph were wordlessly watching a strung up leg of bear meat drip and brown over open flames. The tent was set up behind them, canteens filled with cold spring water, boots and socks drying. Both of them were warmly drying off from ice cold spring water baths, sinuses cleared. Lilac performed an internal review. For the first time since meeting him, she felt a sense of ease. He had made a grand statement, in her eyes at least, that he had at least some investment in keeping her around. And he was right to! She saved him from being mauled by a bear from his own stupid decisions.

"You tried to kill a bear with a knife." She said flatly, feeling cocky as she mimicked his raised eyebrows and cool exterior.

"Hey." His tone was warning, but his expression demonstrated a sort of morbid curiosity that she was bold enough to taunt him, "It's..." he huffed, pushing his hair back with his good hand, "Hah, it's not the dagger I'm used to." He defended. His voice carried softly over the fire to her, his weather-worn face was lit with the amber glow as he looked at his follower. "Nuntalas once had a sister dagger." He smirked at her, "It didn't light or nothin', but it was sharp as wit and light as a feather. I made quick work with her" 

She watched the way his face shifted as he smiled, his half smirk and narrowed violet eyes reflecting firelight before a good dinner. He seemed to be starving for this moment of peace. She giggled, shaking her head, "I believe you." She said brightly.

She pulled down the meat, pulling it apart with her hooves into two mismatched portions. Both of them were exhausted, but they shared a burst of ravenous energy for fresh killed meat, hot and pink in the center. She had to drink down the rich gamey oil that burst out with each grind of her jaw. Her teeth were woefully ill equipped to break down the tight muscle fibers, but she barely contained her impulse to swallow the pieces whole. She didn't even need to look up at Seraph to know he was feeling the same way, listening to the fire crackle and the sound of meat being pulled from bone. 

"Kid?" 

Lilac looked up, holding a bone in her hand and feeling heavier than a stone. She blinked the blurriness away, surprised to feel teardrops fall onto her new dress.

"What... What're you cryin' about?" There was something in his voice that she couldn't distill. Worry didn't sound right, the look in his eyes when his sword was swinging by his neck was worry. This was more of a sense of confusion.

She wiped her eyes with her greasy hoof, "Ah.. Uhm..." She said, "I 'unno." She stammered.

Seraph leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, "Can't hear ya." He coaxed.

She shrugged, pulling her wet blonde hair forward until it covered her shoulders, "I... hmm..." She touched her forehead. She could almost _feel_ Seraph's patience and good will for her running out. "This is all really new." She began, her raw voice barely rising over the contented crackle of the fire, "I never did any of this before. I never even hit my big brothers, a-and today I killed something. Not 'cause I had to, but just 'cause I was mad. And now I'm eating meat and wearing tailored clothes. And I-" she hiccupped into a burst of sporadic sobs, "And I miss my mom and dad." 

She had a moment, a small spark of imagination where she pictured her dad, his gaunt face and gray wiry fur barely lit by the coal fire, looking down at her charred hands. He would kiss her forehead and rub jewelweed and honey on her palms with hooves using such a loving touch she would barely feel it. Then, as he always did when she cried, he would croon in a creaking, aged voice songs his fathers sang to him when he was in need, in a language that she didn't know but understood. She tried to remember the melodies, how they resonated off the marble column walls like it was sung by a choir of oak trees. Fading, only the most essential pieces, sinking into her memory like temple ruins into the mud.

Seraph's body language was soft, he was still leaned in to hear her. In all honesty he didn't know what to do, or what he wanted to do. There was a wicked part of him, casting a shadow over the fire that was incensed with annoyance that he was saddled with her. After all, she was the reason he had to kill a bear in the first place, the reason why his hand was bleeding. She clearly wasn't fit for this lifestyle, she was shaking and in tears from a bad fight she was minimally involved in. How would she react to being struck with a sword by a highwayman? Or going days in a goblin cave without seeing the sun or hearing another voice?

No. That face and steadfast grip on Nuntalas, the way her blue eyes weren't even focused. That was all instinct, it was pure potential that he could pull from her. Besides, he was begrudged to admit it but having someone cook and stoke the campfire made it easier.

"You'll get used to it." He responded coolly, "It's new. But." He shrugged, struggling to find the words. "Kid, you'll hurt for your folks for a long time. You just got to grit your teeth and let it live in you."

She loosened her posture. She hadn't imagined that he would attempt to comfort her, let alone council her on grief. She looked closer at his face, the rings under his eyes and the fine wrinkles between his eyebrows. She couldn't imagine him grieving. She didn't know how or who would love him long enough for him to mourn and cry and howl at the gods for leaving him. He didn't even seem to like Miss Pyxis that much.

She pulled her wrists over her eyes until her fur was dry. She could make it.


	11. Out of the scabbard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seraph battles inner demons outwardly.
> 
> Alternate summary: Seraph commits stylistic child abuse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is lilac five? Ten? Sixteen? The fun new guessing game of 'how do faun ages work?'

Time with Seraph slowly stopped becoming an agonizing tug of war... Mostly. Now it was more of an uneasy alliance. There were still tumultuous moments where Lilac and Seraph antagonized each other in silent war, bitter to be stuck together and caving into the temptation of lashing out. Those moments where she held her breath and hoped he didn't kill her where she stood. But they carried with them small moments of levity. Lilac would wake up covered in an extra deerskin blanket while snow and sharp winter air filled the space around the tent, seeing Seraph restlessly sleeping beside her. And neither of them had the time nor attention to snipe at each other when the meat was cooking. That had quickly grown to be Lilac's favorite moment of the day. Feeling fire crackle and the anticipation, both of them sharing a familiar exhaustion that pooled in sore and swollen legs and fresh bruises.

"I can't." Lilac groaned, chest heaving with exertion. Her coat of tawny fur was slick with sweat despite the frigid temperature. She was wearing ivory linen clothes, a simple white blouse that billowed with each move and coffee colored breeches that let her move without the modesty restriction of the dress she met him in. 

"Come on." Seraph said, grabbing onto her shoulder and giving her a hard shake, his frustration was palpable in the air, "You're weak. You won't ever hold your own if you don't get these basics down." He was showing signs of exertion as well, his hair pulled back into one massive braid to allow the wintery air to cool his neck and shoulders. "Try it again. I'm sick of holding back of you."

" Hold back!" Lilac exclaimed incredulously, gripping her sword with her full strength. Each movement left stripes of her body throbbing with soreness. They had been at it for hours today, and days before it, and his holding back left her seeing stars and sucking wind with each connection.

He lifted Nuntalas above his head with a slow deliberateness, her silver steel hidden under the scabbard.

Swing.

A loud clack as the distal end of her blade met the rain guard of his with such power that the sword was ripped from her hand and boomeranged into the snow. 

Lilac let out a whimper as she grabbed her hoof that resounded with the impact. She gave him a hurt, frustrated expression. 

"You're shit at this." Seraph said, "Pathetic." He planted his steel boot onto her white shirt and kicked her into the snowdrift. His expression was the familiar cold, unreadable violet gaze that burned down through her oily vision. She could read his body language enough to see his frustration had parted into anger. 

"Sorry" she responded quickly, sitting up and coughing, shivering. 

"Stop that." He kicked her onto her back again, "your sword skills aren't instinctual. Ain't impulsive. Ain't deliberate. Fucking everything about you is passive. You just let shit happen to you and wait for it to stop." He said. 

She stood up on shaking knees, brushing snow off of herself, eyes welling with tears. She looked down, his intensity overbearing. 

"This is what I mean." He pressed further. He took a step towards her and lilac felt her stomach drop. There was something inexplicable about the moment, like he was struggling to hold something back. "Passive. Cry and get lucky. That's all you can count on, isn't it..?" She looked back up to him. He was smiling. His expression was sharp-toothed and bloodthirsty.

He cast Nuntalas and her scabbard into the snow to free his hands.

"H-Hey..." Lilac said defensively, putting her hand up. She did know what was happening, but judging on her instincts telling her to run and her body going numb she was in danger. 

"Prove me wrong."

"What?! Stop, this is.. too much." Lilac countered quickly, stepping back again. 

He didn't say anything when his hand grabbed her wrist. She jerked forward with it, scabbard falling off of her blade. 

"Do something!" His pupils were thin black slits, his smile was sadistic and taunting. 

"Stop!" She tried to pull her hand back. Despite the wetness of snow and sweat giving her somewhat of a barrier between his grasp she couldn't. He had years of strength and was composed. She felt like she was about to shatter to pieces. "Seraph." She pleaded, "let me go."

She resisted when he pulled her forward, he moved his body out of the way as she fell headfirst into snow. She moved back, trying to gain leverage before she was lifted up by her collar as he pushed her back to the sharp bark of the pine.

"Do something about it. Stop me from regretting ever saving you from burning to death." He said, knocking her head back into the hard bark. She felt her antler chip with the impact, vision curling into stars and darkness. 

"Let me down!" She grabbed ahold of his long braid and jerked it to the side, her other hand shoving the pommel of the sword into his chest. 

From the distance he was holding her, she could see him with perfect clarity. The moment her hoof grabbed his braid his face flushed, a fluid mix of shock and new anger flashed in his expression. She remembered his look of helplessness and dread when she was his only hope against the moonbear. She wanted to see that fear again. She let the sword fall from her hands between them and pushed the feeling out of her, palm burning against his chest plate. "Let me go!" 

His grip on her tightened and burned. Then Seraph dropped her, doubling over at her feet, coarsely gasping for air. She could see arcs of electricity running down his body before fizzling out. She had a moment of remorse. But just a moment. 

"I should have let the moonbear kill you" her sore throat and breathlessness made her voice sound raw and crackling. 

"But you didn't." He was completely out of breath, on his knees in the snow, fingers curled.

"No.. I should have killed you with your own stupid sword." She said, her back sliding down the tree until she sat in the snow across from him. She wasn't afraid anymore. That movement seemed physical. She really had pushed her feeling out into him. 

"You should have." He responded, pulling off the bracer on the arm that had held her. Lilac could see that his wrist was burned. She could smell his electric burned flesh. She she knew his other wrist was the same. "but you didn't. And now we both gotta live with it." He looked up at her, one eye squinted shut as the pain set in. She could see his neck was ringed with a red burn as well. 

"I'm sorry." Lilac couldn't stop herself from saying it. 

"It's what I wanted." He said. His fingers brushed snow over his burns, letting it melt relief onto his body, "you can't wait around to die. The first-" he stopped to cough, spitting away from them, "the first time I saw any potential in you was when you took that bear into your own hands." He said, "and you only did it 'cause you were pissed off." 

Lilac leaned against the tree, pulling her sleeves up to see her new bruises, "what, this was some teaching moment?" She asked, touching her chipped antler, "you could have done it nicer." 

Seraph huffed, "Started out that way. I got a little caught up." He admitted, "Think I paid the price." 

She admired the burns she had given him. "I didn't know I could do that-"

"Cause you never tried. Who knows what else you have in the canon?" He said. She found the exhaustion in his voice impressive. She had done more damage to him than he did to her. She won. 

"What happened with your eyes? Your eyes got all..." She made a striping gesture with her hands, "you got all crazy."

She saw him tense. The same tension he showed when Pyxis said that thing to him.. about how she would be good at something. She didn't remember that night very well. Trauma had already began blotting it out. 

"I shouldn't say." He said cryptically, his eyes catching sight of her bruises. He ran his thumb along the one on her wrist. His doing. Out of maliciousness, not even training her. He knew he had pushed too far. 

Lilac paused her train of thought to notice the moment. It was, to her, a silent apology. Facing what he had done to her. "You don't get to try and choke me and then say stuff like that." She argued. 

He contemplated, "alright, that's... Fair." He said.


	12. Wolf den

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lilac frees herself from the den of wolves.

"I'm a lycan." He announced with a heavy weight to his words, looking almost expectantly at Lilac. She blinked, face blank. He shook his head. "I'm a lycan!" He repeated, "that's why I've got the braids and the eyes. It's why I run off at night!" 

"A what?" She asked obliviously.

"Holy shit, you're so fucking frustrating." Seraph groaned, rubbing his eyes, "A werewolf, kid. I'm a werewolf." He exclaimed. 

Lilac blinked in surprise. "Y..." She had very little to say in response to that, "you're a.. a monster?" She asked in a whisper, leaning forward with her head cocked. She felt her heart racing again, but she didn't feel afraid this time. 

Seraph recoiled, "I'm a lycan." He repeated, "different from monsters. Lycan have some kinda control over themselves." He said.

"Yeah obviously." Lilac said, gesturing to her bruised arms and chipped antler, "A lot of control. That's why you were looking at me all cra... Wait, were you going to eat me? Is that what that look meant?" 

Seraph looked flustered, "don't ask shit like that." He said, looking away. "I wasn't. I was just testing you." 

"Can I see you turn into a wolf and stuff?" She asked him inquisitively. 

"What? No. Absolutely not. Why aren't you afraid? You're scared of everything." He said. He couldn't clock her reaction. It was, to him, a mix of childish and morbid curiosity. But how much was genuine? He imagined she was putting on a brave face. 

"I can take you, old man." She said. 

Seraph burst into laughter, making Lilac jump. Somehow his laugh was even scarier than his smile. 

"We're going to work on your ability. You might be the worst fucking sword wielder I've ever seen but you've got that sensitivity." Seraph said, "but you still got to get better at weapons. It's embarrassing how bad you are."

Lilac smiled softly. His brashness wasn't impacting her the way it did before. She actually had some autonomy now, she was worth something to him. At least, that's what she was beginning to believe. The moment he revealed his lycan nature, it was as though he presented her with one piece of his armor.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lilac tries her hand at taking on adventuring tasks. Seraph tried to be an altruist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a slow moving series. A little slice of life for two people. It ramps up soon. Battles with Gods, romance, sea shanties, tragic back stories, political intrigue. But for now it's a relatively constrained story about two broken people learning to coexist with each other.

The bulletin board of the library looked plain, but well cared for. The description summated the small township they found themselves in pretty well. Plain and simple. It was once known for housing miners and stonework artesian guilds and stores before they migrated closer to Hel to sell wares. Now all that were left were the elderly stone masons who couldn't bother to make the trip and the miners, trapped by proximity to the massive quartz mountains. 

"I'll let you pick." Seraph said, "make it easy. I don't want to carry you through the whole ordeal." 

Lilac had her nose almost pressed against the board, looking at each request. The small pictures at the bottom were all she had to go off of for the content. "I can't... Uh..." She clicked her hooves together, "I can't read these." 

Seraph heaved a sigh, "what do you mean you can't read them? You're close enough to 'em." He said skeptically. 

"I ca... Ugh." She gave him a hateful stare, lips pursed. "I can't read." She mumbled under her breath. 

"Louder." Seraph retorted. 

"I!! I can't read." She said in a harsh whisper. 

Seraph watched the bridge of her nose and the inside of her ears flare into a bright red blush. "Are you fuckin' kidding me." He responded. 

"I hate you." She looked at the ground.

"It's fine. Here, look." He pointed to each posting, reading them aloud to her as she looked at them. He had almost forgotten that she was a child through their short time together. Sometimes she was just a curse and other times it was like she was an extension of his equipment. 

"That one." She rested her hoof on a help wanted ad, stating in an ornate font, "HELP WANTED: Looking for the return of valuable item from band of thieves. Offering Gold or Training. Inquire within to claim." 

Seraph scrutinized the ad. It was cryptic, overly vague. It could be much worse than expected, but that was fine. He was competent enough for both of them. 

He carried the ad into the library, bristling as he saw everyone turn to look at them. They were all dwarves. Every last one of them were bearded and the same in stature as his young apprentice. The librarian seemed less phased by their introduction, waving them over. 

He sat behind an ornate marble counter, thick veins of gray coursing across the etched surface, finely polished. He was in a high backed chair that clearly lifted him several feet into the air. "You're here to get my map back, I presume?" He had an accent that twisted his nasal voice into a nearly incomprehensible form. Seraph nodded as lilac ran her hand along the surface of the counter. It reminded her of home. Home. 

"A terrible band of roguish thieves stole my most treasured of possessions." He explained, hand clutching his chest dramatically, " above that fireplace hung a framed map from the one and only Great Alvin Petrichor. It predated the Sabine discovery of the New Land. It's very very valuable, you see? A one and only handmade map! Please, these wicked wicked fiends. Oh Gods." He threw his head into his hands. 

"What's the reward?" Seraph asked, unmoved by his theatrical explanation. 

The man peeked an eye up from where his thick fingered hands had them covered, "hm? Oh, well. I can either give you a reward of gold or- you see, I'm something of a mage myself. If you or your young sidekick happen to need some skill building... And I wouldn't say I'm incredible! But I know a thing or two about offensive magics. You know, fire bolt and lightening strike and shock waves." He had a braggadocios tone, holding small blue flames in his palms. 

Seraph groaned. "I'll take the training." He said flatly. He wanted the gold. A night at an inn or with a courtesan sounded much better than Lilac learning fun new ways to be able to kill him. But he didn't want her only use to be spending his coin and cooking dinner. "do you know where the thieves came from?" He asked. 

"They're by the mountains. Others have been haunted by them as well, right on the outskirts of the town limits." He said with lamentation.

Seraph turned, and Lilac was hot on his heels, "Seraph.." She began, hand holding her stomach.   
He didn't turn to look at her, silent as he walked.   
"Seraph." She had a more commanding tone, her voice raised enough for him to hear.   
He didn't say anything, "Thank you." She said, "That was a nice thing to do."  
"It wasn't." He corrected, grabbing her arm and pulling until she was walking beside him, "I did it so you could help in battle." He corrected as they reached the town's boundary.


End file.
